JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The fund Governor Ron DeSantis has used to bankroll the state\u2019s immigration efforts, foreign evacuation missions, and responses to natural disasters is set to expire in 11 days if the legislature fails to act soon. <\/p>\n
That fund, created in 2022, is intended to help the state to quickly respond during states of emergency, and over the years, it\u2019s been used to dole out more than $6.5 billion.<\/p>\n
While the bulk of that money has gone to hurricane response, roughly $575 million has been spent on the state\u2019s immigration efforts, including the construction of Alligator Alcatraz and Deportation Depot.<\/p>\n
Despite the Governor claiming back in October<\/a> a $608 million federal reimbursement had been approved to the state back for those efforts, state officials revealed on Thursday that money still hasn\u2019t been received, indicating the Department of Justice is holding up the payments.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have those resources to respond to real emergencies,\u201d said State Senator Carlos Gillermo Smith (D-Orlando).<\/p>\n Senator Smith voted against the creation of the fund back in 2022, fearing it could be used to fund missions outside of natural disaster response.<\/p>\n His fears came true when the Governor declared a state of emergency on immigration the next year.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an emergency declaration that has been repeatedly extended for more than three years now, allowing for state laws to be waived, like requirements for contracts to go out for bid.<\/p>\n \u201cLots of contractors who are well connected to the Governor, because of this emergency response fund, have enriched themselves from this humanitarian crisis that is happening down at the Everglades,\u201d said Smith.<\/p>\n Despite concerns raised by Democrats over how the money has been spent, State Senator Danny Burgess (R-Zephyrhills) argued putting too many guardrails around the fund could leave the state vulnerable.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re missing things like mass shootings. I don\u2019t think we want to put ourselves type of a predicament, God forbid that ever happens again. That\u2019s the risk we run when we overprescribe,\u201d said Burgess.<\/p>\n The Senate advanced a bill to the floor on Thursday that would extend the emergency fund through December of next year, but similar legislation in the House hasn\u2019t even been scheduled for a hearing.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The fund Governor Ron DeSantis has used to bankroll the state\u2019s immigration efforts, foreign evacuation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[43162,116,118,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-146717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-deportation-depot","9":"tag-jacksonville","10":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","11":"tag-jacksonville-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}